Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Nadja (1994)

Title: Nadja (1994)

Director: Michael Almereyda

Cast: Peter Fonda, Galaxy Craze, Jared Harris, Elina
Lowensohn

Vampires by way of David Lynch? Sign me up! So you get David
Lynch to not only produce your vampire movie but to cameo in it as well? You
lucky bastards you! So anyhow, here we have an art house vampire flick; which
is not the rarity you might think it is. True, there are many crappy vampire
films being produced every day (way too many if you ask me) but you’d be surprised
at just how many ‘art-house’ vampire flicks are out there as well. I remember
a few of them, let see, there’s Blood for Dracula (1974), made artful
simply by the fact that it was directed by Andy Warhol himself, then we have
Tony Scott’s The Hunger(1983), Blood and Donuts (1995), Romero’s Martin (1976),
Del Toro’s Cronos (1993) to mention just a few of the most prominent examples.
These are vampire films that don’t concentrate so much on the gore and guts; rather,
they focus on presenting us with a more artful and original takes on the
vampire genre.

Nadja does the same thing that a lot of contemporary vampire
movies do, they play out their story in a modern setting, but it essentially
plays with all the characters and situations presented on Bram Stoker’s famous
novel. So on Nadja we have a Dracula, a Dr. Van Helsing, a Lucy, a Reinfeld and
so on. But don’t mistake Nadja for just another retelling of Bram Stoker’s
novel, instead, the film plays like a day in the life of the Dracula family.
You see, according to this film, Dracula had many children over the centuries,
and now they roam the earth, feeding on humans. Nadja is the daughter of
Dracula, and when we first meet her, she is on her way to meet her brother, to
let him know that their father has truly died. Along the way, Nadja falls for
and seduces a blond girl by the name of ‘Lucy’ and after their lustful
encounter, Lucy can’t forget her. Will Lucy turn into a full vampire? Or can
Van Helsing and his nephew save her from the clutches of the vampire family?

So first things first, Nadja is not only artsy fartsy, it is
extremely artsy-fartsy! Starting by the fact that the film is in black and
white, which by the way I found very pleasing to the eye. I am not a black and
white hater, in fact, for certain projects I say it fits perfectly, for example
in Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City (2005) the black and white augments the sense of
film noir and the feeling of reading one of Frank Miller’s black and white
comic books. The black and white goes with Nadja because the filmmakers
obviously display a certain admiration for old school horror movies like White
Zombie (1932) and Dracula (1931), going as far as actually using some scenes
from White Zombie as part of the film; which brings to mind how Nadja turned out to be a straight forward
vampire film, I was expecting even more subtlety with the vampire themes, but
nope, it’s pretty straight forward. It might as well have been called Daughter
of Dracula or something! In Nadja we meet Dracula’s daughter and she’s this slick
lady who loves to smoke her cigarettes by the pale moon light walking around
the city looking all sorts of mysterious and sexy. The black and white also
gives Nadja the feel of an experimental film, which in many ways it is.

The blurry effect

For example, the director decided to use a blurry vision
effect to demonstrate how it would feel to be under the power of a vampire.
During these scenes, the image of the films looks as if it’s being filtered
through some sort of really low definition camera that’s out of focus as well,
so we see these blurry images. I say this effect works within the context of
what the director is trying to achieve, but I also think he over used it; for
example there were various scenes in which I was digging the crisp black and
white imagery and suddenly the director would switch back to the blurry vision
thing, to me it got in the way of enjoying the black and white cinematography
which was beautiful; though I will admit the blurry effect also adds to the
strangeness of the film. Nadja certainly exudes a strange vibe, that feeling of
being somewhere in the middle of the city during the deep hours of the night, when
the freaks come out. So just be ready for a film that takes many risks by
trying different visual techniques like these.

Like many vampires who have walked for eons upon the earth,
the vampires in Nadja like to philosophize about life and muse about the way
things are, it’s one of the things I liked about the film. Something might be
happening and suddenly one of the vampires starts philosophizing, handing out
golden nuggets of wisdom. They say things like “The pain I feel is the pain of
fleeting joy” referring to her passing relationships. And speaking of
relationships, this is yet another lesbian vampire film to add to the list.
Nadja likes the ladies and falls for one of her victims, just like in VampyrosLesbos(1971), Daughters of Darkness (1971) and Vampire Lovers (1970). In fact,
at times Nadja felt like a remake of Vampyros Lesbos with regards to the
character of Lucy and the relationship that develops between her and Nadja.
They meet in a bar, hit it off and end up having a crazy night together that
ends in seduction. The day after, Lucy can’t think of anything else but being
with Nadja! Same thing happens with the two romantically entangled lady
vampires in Vampyros Lesbos. But this shouldn’t surprise anyone, vampires have
always been the embodiment of seduction.

The actress who plays Nadja, Elina Lowensohn is so beautiful
and exotic looking, I add her to that roster of actresses who’s look is so otherworldly
that they light the screen on fire whenever they appear. Elina Lowensohn’s
performance as Nadja brought to mind the equally seductive performances of actresses
like Nastassja Kinski in Cat People (1982) or Anne Parillaud inInnoncent Blood(1992), you know sexy, dangerous, exotic looking female fatales. Bottom line
with Nadja is that it’s a very somber film, with lots of serious vampires
smoking cigarettes and musing about life. At its core is a story centered on family
“as you get older you begin to realize that family is the only thing that
matters” and relationships but told through the filter of the whole Dracula
mythology. During the film we follow Dracula’s siblings and discover they’ve been
feuding for years; can they deal with each other after years of avoidance, especially now that their father's death has brought them together? At
the same time, you’ll find some comedy squeezed in between all the seriousness;
but it’s very subtle, never in your face. Peter Fonda’s Dr. Van Helsing is an
amusing performance, he offers up some of those subtle yet effective comedic moments. The
thing with a movie like this is that you gotta be in a very mellow vibe to
watch it; you gotta want to watch a slow, quiet film about brooding sad
vampires. Save it for one of those nights when you want to see something different,
artful and experimental in nature, hey it was produced by David Lynch (he even cameos in it!) what’d
you expect? Normality?

2 comments:

Yeah, Nadja is influenced a bit by Lynch which is why I decided to include it as part of my tribute to Lynch. During all of November, I will not only be reviewing most of Lynch's films, but also films that are influenced by his work. so keep your eyes pealed for that.